Potstickers

My dumplings from yesterday's post also make good potstickers. I had not encountered potstickers before I started reading American blogs. Some chinese restaurants have fried dumplings, but potstickers are a rare product here.

Potstickers

Makes 15 potstickers

15 dumplings (see recipe in previous post)
1 tablespoon neutral oil (vegetable, canola or rice bran oil is good)
1/2 cup vegan stock (I used Massel Chicken Style stock)
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon say sauce
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar

1. Heat oil in non-stick or cast iron pan on medium heat.
2. Add dumplings to pan. Reduce heat a little. Fry on one side until that side is browned and crisp.
3. Mix remaining ingredients. Add to pan with the dumplings.
4. Bring gentle to boil.
5. Reduce to a fairly fast simmer.
6. Simmer until broth is absorbed (about 10 minutes).
7. Serve.

Everyone in our family enjoyed these. I could happily have doubled the recipe. I liked the crisp/chewy/simmered texture. I can see why they are so popular in the US.

Making dumplings

I love Asian food, as you have probably noticed. I frequently buy pre-made dim sum from asian supermarkets. However, I recently decided to make my own. So here is my take on dumplings. I think that next time I would use tofu or seitan in them.

Dumplings

Makes approx 30 dumplings

Take these ingredients:


200 g Vegan roast pork (Seitan, tofu or TVP mince would also be good)
2 Spring/green onions
3 mushrooms
1/4 small wombok (chinese cabbage)
dash each powdered ginger and black pepper
Dash soy sauce
Vegan wonton wrappers

1. Dice all vegetables and roast pork into a small dice.
   
2. Fry gently.
3. Once the vegetables have softened and liquid has been absorbed, remove from hear and allow to cool a little.
4. Place a small spoonful of mixture onto each vegan wonton wrapper. Fold and seal with a touch of water. I got lazy and simply folded them, but you could crimp them into a ruffled shape or an upright wonton, if you prefer. Place aside on a tray in a single layer:

5. You may now cook the dumplings or freeze them. The dumplings may be used in
wonton soup, fried, deep fried, steamed or used for pot stickers.



Wonton Soup

3-5 dumplings per person
Vegan stock (vegetable or chick'n style are good) (this is a liquid soup, so you will need 1-2 litres for 4-8 people)
pinch dried ginger
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame
Asian style vegetables, including bock choy, sliced mushroom, and carrot (optional)

1. Put all ingredients but dumplings and green leafy vegetables in a large pot. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer.
2. Add wontons. Return to boil and then reduce to a simmer.
3. Simmer for approximately 5 minutes, or until dumplings are translucent and cooked.
4. Add green bok choy leaves to wilt.
5. Serve

The dumplings were good, but the char sieu style "pork" was a bit dominant in the recipe.

Spinach and Cheezely Pastries

This is what we had for dinner last night. You can see spinach and cheezely pastries, corn, asparagus, baked mushrooms and potatoes with punk rock chickpea gravy, from Vegan With a Vengeance. (If you have VWAV, you should make this gravy. It is seriously good!)

Spinach and Cheezely Pastries

Makes 8 pastries

Ingredients

250g frozen spinach
1 loosely packed cup grated mozzarella style Cheezely
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
pinch of salt and pepper
2 sheets Borg's vegan puff pastry (Aldi puff pastry is apparently also vegan)
little water to moisten pastry

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
2. Defrost frozen spinach. Drain well.
   
3. Lightly fry onion in oil until translucent.
4. Mix spinach, onion cheezley and seasonings.
5. Quarter each sheet of pastry.
6. Put 1/8th of the spinach mix on one side of each square of pastry.
7. Moisten edges of pastry lightly. Fold pastry over filling. press edges together.
   
8. Bake for 1/2 hour or until golden.

M was helping me roll the pastries. She suggested that we should make rolls. You can also make rectangles, triangle or any other shape you fancy.

Everyone liked this one. Puff pastry is usually popular with my kids. They also love spinach and cheese. The younger two children took the last few rolls to school today in their lunchboxes, with cold icepacks to keep them fresh.

This is a handy dish to serve non-vegans. Omnis find it familiar (cheese and spinach triangles!). You can make small versions for parties. For a lower fat version, you can substitute filo pastry for the puff pastry.

Quick Pizza

This is a quick pizza that we had for lunch today. The base was a small pita bread. They are a convenient, low fat, thin base, with a bit of a crunch, if you bake them right.

I used Mediterranean relish for a sauce. It is tangy and a bit sweet. I then topped it with olives, mushroom, roasted pumpkin, fresh oregano and some small chunks of Cheezely garlic and herb vegan cheese.

It hit the spot. The children had variations on this. J had the same as me. M had only sauce, olives and cheese. Z had only sauce and olives. It was gone in no time.

The other day, I had this simple toasted sandwich for lunch. It was toasted with only Cheezely herb and garlic vegan cheese. After toasting, I added the fresh tomato, rocket (from my garden) and avocado. On the side, there are kalamata olives and pickled onions.


Cheezely has the best vegan "cheese" that I have eaten (out of the admittedly very limited options available to Australian consumers). While it does not taste exactly like cow cheese, it does fill the desire for cheese with a savoury flavour and cheesy texture (whough some are a little floury if not melted. Their super melting options melt reasonably well for pizzas or anywhere else that you crave melted cheese. My favourite is the herb and garlic, which is the only vegan cheese replacement that I would eat on crackers.

My subconscious likes salads

Last night, I had a wonderful dream. Other people dream of world peace (which is a good thing) or dates with George Clooney (a date with George would be a good thing for sure), but that was not my dream. I dreamt that I was making a salad. It was beautiful. I created a new dressing and was raving about it. I had perfect butter lettuce leaves and buttery avocado.

Why yes, I am a complete food nerd and probably need to get out more. Why do you ask?

I woke up happy and hungry. I wrote down my subconscious' dressing recipe and resolved to make the dream salad for dinner tonight. I did and lo, it was good. So here it is:


Dream Salad

Makes 4 servings as a side salad. Double or quadruple for larger groups.

Butter lettuce (around 8 large leaves)
1/2 avocado, in 1-2 cm dice
Tomato, sliced in wedges
3 cm cucumber, sliced
2 radishes, sliced
1 large mushroom, sliced

Dressing Ingredients
(Makes 1 cup, enough for several salads, halve or quarter for smaller serves)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup good fruity extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon maple syrup
4 good pinches salt
2 pinches black pepper
enough white wine vinegar to make up to 1 cup

1. Put the all but the last dressing ingredient in a 1 cup (or more) measuring cup.
2. Add white wine wine vinegar until there is 1 cup of dressing.
3. Whisk dressing until oil is emulsified.
4. Put all salad ingredients in a salad bowl.
5. Add enough dressing to salad to coat (about 1/4 cup for the amount of vegetables above).
6. Toss until well coated.

You can refrigerate the remaining dressing. I imagine you would be able to keep it for several days.

Now I'm off to bed. I may even dream the secret coke recipe...

Green Mango Salad + Welcome to VeganMoFo

October is the worldwide Vegan Month of Food or VeganMoFo. It is an annual blogging event, created by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (cookbook author and creator of the amazing Post Punk Kitchen online community). VeganMoFo is now in its third year. The aim of VeganMoFo is for bloggers to write posts about vegan food each business day, or more, for the month of October. It is a celebration of the amazing range, creativity and geographical spread of vegan food. The list of participants is apparently more than 320 people. The amazing Kittee is doing most of the organisation for the event this year. You can find more information at her blog, Cake Maker to the Stars.

On to the food! As you have probably noticed from other posts on this blog, I love Asian food. It is delicious, easily made vegan, and relies on fresh vegetables, which are a big favourite for me in any meal. I also love salads in hot weather.

The two came together in a tangy green mango salad. I have been curious about green mango for years, since I had a student who had grown up in north Queensland and who raved about them. I had looked at many different recipes for green mango salad on the net. When I saw green mangoes at the Asian supermarket, I had to get them.

Here are the ingredients that I planned to use for the salad:


Ignore the carrot. I decided not to use it after trying the green mango and dressing. I used herbs from my garden, plus some nasturtium flowers for decoration. Use fresh store-bought herbs or minced herbs, if you don't grow them. I wouldn't use dried herbs for this one.



Green Mango Salad
Serves 4 as a side dish

2 green mangos, grated or julienned
2 spring onions, chopped
1 tablespoon of sugar (I used half palm and half white, but brown, all palm or all white would be good)
2 tablespoons of lime juice
1/2 - 1 tsp vegan balachan shrimp paste (Depending on your preferred saltiness. Replace with 1 tablespoon of soy sauce if you don't have balachan)
2 tablespoons of sweet chilli sauce
Small bunch of vietnamese mint (use mint if you don't have vietnamese mints), chopped
Small bunch coriander, chopped
2 tablespoons crushed peanuts
Nasturtium flowers or extra mint and coriander to garnish

1. Dissolve sugar in lime juice. I put them both in a cup in the microwave and heated them until the sugar dissolved.
2. Add the shrimp paste to the lime juice. Mix until dissolved.
3. Add sweet chilli sauce to dressing and set aside.
4. Mix the mango, spring onion and herbs well. Mound in a serving dish.
   
5. Pour dressing over salad.
6. Sprinkle nuts on centre of salad. Add garnish
7. Put salad in fridge for 1/2 hour to develop flavours. Serve.

I bought the vegan shrimp paste from the Cruelty Free Shop. It has the pungent scent and strong salty flavour of traditional shrimp paste. This was the first time that I used it. It worked very well. I have yet to try it in a Thai curry, but I suspect it will work very well.